DUBAI, April 8, 2024 (BSS/TASS) - At least 38 civilians were killed and over 70 were injured as a result of Israeli shelling in various areas of the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the Palestinian agency WAFA reported.

"Over the past 24 hours, the occupying forces committed four massacres, resulting in the death of 38 citizens and the wounding of 71 others," the agency noted, citing health sources in the Palestinian enclave.

According to them, six civilians were killed and several were injured as a result of Israeli air raids in the area of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip.

In the south of the enclave, Israeli aircraft targeted a group of civilians in the town of Al-Nasr, killing at least one civilian and wounding several others. Six bodies of the dead were recovered from the rubble of a house bombed by occupation forces in the Shujayya neighborhood of Gaza City.

The number of victims of the military operation carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of October last year has already reached 33,175. Over the past period, more than 75,800 people were injured in the Palestinian enclave.

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7, 2023, after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking hundreds hostage.

Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and started carrying out retaliatory strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria.
 
On December 1, the Israeli army accused Hamas of violating a ceasefire that had taken effect on November 24 and resumed combat operations in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians held the US responsible for the renewed Israeli aggression.